Books Set in San Diego

PinkLady just mentioned reading a book, new to me, that is set in San Diego, The Fallen by T. Jefferson Parker. That got me to thinking--what other books that I might not know of are set in San Diego. I know two mystery series, one by Abigail Padgett and the other by Janice Steinberg. I know there are others I've heard of that simply aren't coming to mind at the moment. Can we build a bibliography of books set in San Diego? (just put San Diego in brackets to see what would show up--San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories by Tom Reamy did.)

Another suspense novel I read recently taking place in San Diego, or at least south San Diego County, is Tijuana Straits by Kem Nunn. It's about an ex-con and surfer who rescues Magdalena, a Mexican environmental activist, when she is washed ashore at the California Mexico border. This book takes place mainly in the Tijuana Estuary and border regions.

The Grift is set in North County.

Oh, I think definitely anywhere in San Diego County is in bounds for this!

Here's more San Diego-set fiction:

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/sandiego/0028020052.html

Do we count The Lost World? ;-)

I should not type such things, though; out of respect.

Actually, I cannot think of any books set in San Diego that is not nonfiction...

Please keep this going!!!

Daniel

Nice little blurb on San Diego books on that Frommers link--thanks! Joseph Wambaugh is the other author that I had in mind, but couldn't think of his name.

Wambaugh was the first to come to my mind, since he did a lot of reasearch with, and modeled a character on, my father-in-law, a former SDPD Lt....

There was a book review this week in the Union-Tribune about a book set in San Diego (fiction) but my husband threw out the paper before I got it written down. Anyone see it?

Was it a children's mystery? I see I So Don't Do Mysteries is SD-set:

http://books.signonsandiego.com/?q=node/3098

edit: the touchstone is broken and goes only to the orphan copy without an author even when it shows up correctly to the right

Yes, that was it. I think it's a young adult?

It looks like it. The blurb said it would be especially good for girls 9-12.

(one more try to get the touchstone to work: I So Don't Do Mysteries by Barrie Summy)

Let us not forget our very own master storyteller and master at spinning a plot, Alan Russell, who used to clerk at a hotel in La Jolla. Multiple Wounds takes place in San Diego and is about the murder of a classics teacher, whose multiple-perosnality daughter is one of the suspects. It'll keep you turning pages and wondering just how it will end.

Another of Alan's books is The Hotel Detective which takes place at The Hotel California, which could be any hotel in San Diego, involving a gathering of 126 people in one hotel, all of whom have the name Bob Johnson. A murder occurs and unraveling this mystery will keep you laughing until the end.

I can also vouch for all of the books in the Blue series of Abigail Padgett. She knows how to tell a story with passion and purpose.

Dr. Blue McCarron is a gay social psychologist who dons her PI hat to solve many murders in this series.

Glad to see The Grift mentioned -- Debra Ginsberg. Also, great beach reading is The Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow (NOT the Don Winslow who writes bad porn!).
Martha Lawrence and Taffy Cannon also had local mystery series, although I believe they're not currently in print.
Vernor Vinge set Rainbows End in San Diego.
I know there are more that aren't coming to mind right now.
MG has a local authors page on our site
http://mg.booksense.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=localauthors
although not all of the books are set locally.

The tagmash for San Diego & fiction uncovered more titles. The few I clicked on were set in San Diego, but that may not always be the case.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/fiction,san%20diego

Holy beach-front property, that's quite a list -- I'd better get reading...

Many thanks to chanale for inviting me. I didn't know fellow San Diegans were here. (And I have to sheepishly raise my hand and say, my latest book, The Adoration of Jenna Fox, is set in San Diego, albeit 50 years from now. North County to be exact.)

While not set in San Diego, per se, 'Black Wave' is the true story of a San Diego family who set out on 'round the world' journey on their Catamaran a few years ago, with two teenage kids and ended up dashed upon the shoals of a South Pacific reef, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Has anyone here read/heard of the book?

I've read it and know, peripherally, the brother of the co-author of the book--co-written by the wife.

Thought I'd revive this thread and tell you about another book I just read set in San Diego. The Best of Good by Sara Lewis is about middle-aged songwriter and former band member Tom Good, whose life is going nowhere. That all changes when he learns he has a 10 year-old son.

Although San Diego doesn't take a starring role in the story, there are lots of local landmarks mentioned.

One or two Joseph Wambaugh books were set in San Diego.

I read a book by Vincent Bugliosi several years ago about a San Diego young woman going off with some guy in a boat and ending up on some island. As I recall the second half of the book was all San Diego courtroom drama.

Just read The Gangster We Are All Looking For by Le Thi Diem Thuy. It's the 2011 One Book/One San Diego about a young girl who flees war-torn Vietnam with her father in a fishing boat, eventually ending up in San Diego. It's written as fiction, but heavily based on the author's own experiences.

Sh*t My Dad Says was mostly in San Diego, Pt Loma and SDSU. And it's hilarious.

The latest volume in Akashic's "Noir" series features San Diego: San Diego Noir.

I read Time Up by Justin McLachlan. This is a science fiction novel based in San Diego..and the author is too. Interesting read.

The Anna Strong Chronicles by Jeanne C. Stein are set in the San Diego region, for those who enjoy urban fantasy and vampire mysteries.

Just finished How To Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway, set in San Diego and Japan.

Based on experiences of the author’s mother, the book tells the story of Shoko, who marries an American sailor during WWII. Fifty years later, as she lays dying in San Diego, Shoko asks her daughter to go to Japan to reconcile with her brother who disowned her when she left Japan. Each chapter has an excerpt from a book giving Japanese war brides tips on how to be a successful American wife.

Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan is a wonderful, charming story--not adult--but set in San Diego. Also Into the Beautiful North is a modern immigrant fairy tale (according to PBS)--a funny and interesting book set partly that was One Book One San Diego last year. Enjoy both these set in San Diego.

I just read an interesting account of Tim Gaynor's research into the issues of border security between the USA and Mexico, and what's being done to stop the flow of illegal immigration and drug smuggling. San Ysidro and Otay Mesa are huge parts of the problem in Midnight on the Line: The Secret Life of the U.S.-Mexico Border

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker is set in San Diego, Del Mar area it seems. Centered on a 6th grade girl and her family/neighborhood as the planet's orbit begins "the slowing" -- so far, excellent.

Age of Miracles was just reviewed in New Yorker--looks good to me. Of course the New Yorker did not mention it was set in San Diego. Sounds like a very intriguing premise.

Jules Verne has a couple books which mention San Diego.


One of them is The Floating Island of 1895 (sometimes published as Propeller Island) where a group of entertainers, a French string quartette, between engagements in San Francisco and San Diego are diverted to Standard Island, a floating community with a contentious relationship between the two sides, port and starboard.


The other one with more relevant San Diego content is Mistress Branican of 1891 where a woman, whose sea captain husband has not returned home, sets out on a journey to find him after a good interval. Her home and embarkation point is San Diego. Although Verne never visited here and did not read English, he did find a French-speaking correspondent who could supply him with details of the area.

Unfortunately, these texts are somewhat difficult to find in French or English on the usual sites (Gutenberg, Archive.org, Google Books, etc.). We did make a PDF of page scans of Mistress Branican but it is a rather large file.

We set up an exhibit of many of our Jules Verne books at UCSD Geisel Library in the art library section downstairs. It will be on display through Saturday August 25 when there will be a paper theater show with parts of his Journey Through the Impossible play in conjunction with a steampunk-themed tea with many people attending in costume.

James

How neat! Thanks for letting us know about this.

Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson, later retitled Somewhere In Time and made into a movie was originally set in the Hotel Coronado where Matheson was staying when he wrote the book. The movie changed the location to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, because it was a like Victorian pile, and there was no modern visual clutter to interfere with the filming. Moreover, the bookstore visited by Reeves in the movie was actually the old Wahrenbrock's in the book. I was told this by the late Chuck Valverde. I had gone into his store looking for the book. We were going to northern Michigan to visit family, and I booked rooms at the Grand Hotel because my daughter had loved the movie. Small world.

Fascinating! Oh, how I miss Wahrenbrock's!

I miss Chuck V. and Wahrenbrock's too.
He was a great guy and there are too few stores like that today.
:(

Kim K

Everyone in San Diego loves our Navy SEALS, and this is a fictionalized account of enduring the torture it takes to become a SEAL, particularly the rigorous and exhaustive training/abuse known as Hell Week. It's written by a former SEAL and, from everything I know from SEAL friends, it rings so true, with lots of familiar Coronado landmarks.

Suffer in Silence: A Novel of Navy Seal Training by David Reid

The Ploncedite is a single day first person fantasy adventure taking place on the Torrey Pines / La Jolla coast.